As a result, Trump receives the support of a massive block of voters in the Midwest, where economic stagnation has been evident for many decades. In this scenario, the Democrats will become political losers well beyond 2018. The road to the White House will be closed to them for decades. The states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Michigan, and Wisconsin are unlikely to return to the Democratic camp any time soon.
Wishful thinking. I'm a conservative (classical liberal) so I don't forget what happened, and I especially don't forget what just happened.
These naval gazing articles predicting phase shifts in the electorate (Tom Friedmanesque BS), and I don't care if it's demographics on the left, or manufacturing jobs on the right, miss that elections are way more emotional and like the stock market than they are deep thinking endeavors based on well understood ideology and clear policy proposals.
Most people are oblivious to politics, and just sort of half listen to the din. They vote their emotions (like stock traders) and not with their heads. Barack Obama has a Marxist ideology that 95% of Americans would be totally repulsed by if he openly illustrated what he thinks and why. He was the real deal Manchurian Candidate. Yet, he got elected twice because:
People were more attracted to the idea of supporting the above for what it said about themselves (proving to themselves and everyone else they're not racist) than what it said about the direction the country should take. Obama was one of the worst Presidents we've ever had hands down, and yet he was reelected!
Maybe Trump is playing three dimensional chess. Maybe he's not. The only legitimate prediction is that the USA is going to crash and burn, exactly like every single civilization that came before us. We may get lucky and get a Cesar Augustus who reinvigorates civil society, moves moral turpitude back to a place it was, and reconstitutes the treasury, but even then it's only a good delaying tactic.
I just don't buy these phase shift articles. I've seen it swing too violently and wildly to believe there is some grand strategy and it's more than idiot Americans voting for whatever candidate and policy basket that makes them feel good about their own selves at that moment, and then they forget all about it.
How many people do you think voted for sexual super-predator Slick Willy back then, but would deny it today?